BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : No Question: Cubans Are No. 1 : Baseball: The have no trouble with Taiwan and win the gold medal, 11-1.

The unbeaten Cuban baseball team had it all Wednesday: bash, brash and gold.

Lazaro Vargas, Orestes Kindelan and Alberto Hernandez homered and high-fived as the Cubans drubbed Taiwan 11-1 in an anticlimactic Olympic gold medal game.

Vargas also hit for the cycle and drove in a pair of runs as Cuba completed its tournament-long domination with one final show of force, then celebrated with gusto.

Japan (6-3) won the bronze with an 8-3 victory earlier Wednesday over the United States (5-4), which went home without a medal.

Cuba (9-0) outscored its opponents 95-16 and bashed 17 homers in the Olympics to remain unbeaten its last five years of tournament play. Its pitching staff also was quietly sensational, allowing the fewest runs in the Olympics.

Taiwan (6-3) managed just four hits and an unearned run off Giorge Diaz and didn’t even present a scoring threat until the Cubans’ power had built a 5-0 lead in the fourth.

Diaz was at the center of a World Series-style celebration after he threw a called third strike past Chang Wen-chung to end the game. The Cubans mobbed him on the mound and then took a victory lap around the field, trailing two Cuban flags.

Taiwan wasn’t stunned by the loss. The players laughed as they shook hands with the Cubans a few minutes after the last out and then lined up to have their pictures taken with them as though they were movie stars.

They were the stars of the tournament, establishing their superiority early and leaving no room for intrigue at the end.

Vargas led off the game with a double off the right-field wall and took third on Lin Choa-huang’s wild pitch to the backstop. Antonio Pacheco followed with a sacrifice fly, and Kindelan hit a towering solo homer to left one out later to put Cuba in control.

Vargas led off the third with a homer and provided the game’s most amusing moment. He circled his arm wildly as he sprinted around the bases, lost his batting helmet as he rounded third, then tripped and fell face-first halfway to home.

Baseball Medalists

GOLD: Cuba

SILVER: Taiwan

BRONZE: Japan